


for yonder breaks

by sevdrag (seventhe)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), First Kiss, First Time, Followed by Real Sex, Holidays, Love Confessions, M/M, Metaphysical Sex, Overdramatic Author, Sentient Bentley (Good Omens), slight food porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/pseuds/sevdrag
Summary: For centuries, if they've been in the same area, Crowley and Aziraphale have celebrated the Christmas holiday together. It isn't the same every year - they've done Hanukkah, they've done Yule - but the tradition of a small private celebration, behind closed doors and with extraordinary amounts of alcohol, is fairly constant.This first Christmas after the canceled Armageddon sees them both trying to uphold this tradition, while reflecting the way everything has changed. This holiday seems the same, but it's very different.(Including the REAL story of the Baby Jesus, the reluctant sale of two (2) books, a number of olives which do not survive, a good amount of brandy, and a couple confessions that are long overdue.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 243





	for yonder breaks

**Author's Note:**

> me, Dec 21: I'm going to write a cute little GO holiday fic  
> me, 3000 words later: i mean it's a nice idea  
> me, at 6000 words: help  
> me, new year's eve, breaking 10K and sobbing into my keyboard: _someBody hELP ... me_
> 
> **why am i like this.** who knows. but this is the holiday get-together fic my brain wanted to write, apparently. Cheers!

December’s always a sort of mixed bag for them, this century. It’s such a mashup of human holidays - Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, all sorts of beliefs - all mixed in with a healthy dose of consumerist capitalism, right at the crossroads of Greed Drive and Altruism Boulevard. The thing is, they both love the season. Crowley loves the way people get worked up and disappointed over meaningless presents, the way idiots go mad and spend money, the price gouging and the ridiculous irritation of constant modern remakes of Christmas songs. Aziraphale loves the charity, the goodwill and the celebration of peace and common ground; the giving, and the love and family bits.

The thing is, they also both hate the season. Crowley gets love and acceptance and forgiveness shoved in his face, which he thinks is _entirely_ hypocritical based on the way humans treat each other on days that _aren’t_ Christmas; plus, all of the family fighting actually makes him feel weary. Aziraphale’s just tired of the overproduced bits: a Santa on every corner, a new remake of that _horrid_ song about the shoes every year, and no one has done eggnog right since 1867, and that’s a _tragedy._

(They both loathe the music, by the way. Even Aziraphale, who once sang in the heavenly choir, can’t listen to more than the first verse of _Silent Night_ without changing the radio station. It isn’t the content; it’s the _frequency_. When they see a Lutheran church they cross the street to avoid it. Nobody needs all seventeen verses of _Hark the Herald Angels._ Not even the damned Lutherans.)

The moral of this story - the real Christmas miracle here - is that most years, if they end up in the same region, they end up spending most of the Christmas holiday together, in a _solitary_ way that keeps them away from the utterly annoying chaos humanity seems to generate at this time every year. Honestly, it keeps them out of trouble; any years they’d tried to spend out in the field, they’d ended up embarrassing themselves. They still don’t talk about the Christmas of 1982 when they’d both ended up in the United States, mostly because they aren’t entirely sure no one remembers the Jesus-shaped fireworks (or Crowley’s _inspiring_ version of Gabriel).

Knowing this - knowing all this - Crowley scowls at everyone as he gets out of the car at whatever open market he’s suddenly, unexpectedly, graced with his presence. He didn’t mean to, but he’d gotten into the Bentley to drive to the bookshop only to find himself outside the car - door closed! - within the midst of some outdoor holiday festival. Snow is falling in slow, fat flakes that occasionally sting-melt across Crowley’s nose; he’s resisting the urge to lick at them with snake-tongue. He doesn’t want to be here, on Christmas Eve, caught up in the ridiculous annals of humanity; he wants to be in the bookshop, already drunk, perhaps with a string of holiday lights twined around his head. 

But ever since the summer - since the world didn’t end - the Bentley will, occasionally, get a mind of its own, and bring Crowley somewhere he isn’t expecting. Usually they turn out alright, or at least harmless; he’s fairly sure it isn’t his car’s fault about the pond, or the troll bridge. Crowley isn’t quite sure what Adam’s done with the Bentley, but it’s the holidays, and hating carols has used up most of his energy, so he doesn’t really have enough left to get really mad. Plus, it’s the Bentley: a car that put up with over eighty years of taxi service for two astral beings, met its match driving through hours of infernal Hellfire, then found itself reborn by the Antichrist Himself is allowed to have a bit of a personality at this point. (So far, the Bentley seems to be _annoyingly cheeky._ Crowley puts this down to the fact that he can’t quite bring himself to yell at his car in the same way he tends his plants.)

So Crowley buttons up his wool peacoat - black, but with a hint of dark grey fur around the wide collar, which he thinks makes him look distinguished - and tightens his scarf, the deep-red cotton-silk blend Aziraphale had bought for him, and heads off to see what the Bentley wanted with this absurd market.

It’s only a bit after five; because it’s winter in bloody London, the sky is dark, and Aziraphale isn’t expecting him for another two hours. (Crowley always leaves early, these days; it’s going to take him a while before he doesn’t feel the low whine of anxiety.) This impromptu setup is all lit up with lanterns and lights everywhere; pinpricks of color floating through the market. Crowley lets his human-sight fade for a moment and revels in snake-vision: each lightbulb is a tiny pinprick of heat, and amongst the yellow-grey-blue of the humans, their heat and warmth hums in that dimension he can’t reach in his standard corporation.

Crowley spots a cheesemonger, and thinks: _Oh, well, that’s at least worth a stop._

A bit later, Crowley checks his watch to realize it’s half six: he’s standing in the middle of a bit of a clearing, fat snowflakes all over his gloves and coat, and there’s an unholy merry mix of bags hanging off of his left wrist. He hisses, and gathers himself together, and heads down a road he knows he’ll find the Bentley parked at a few blocks down.

———

After - everything; after the lack of Armageddon and their respective trials and the Ritz - at the end of August, they’d come back to the bookshop. Crowley had dozed on the couch while Aziraphale made multiple rounds of his own shelves, exclaiming in joy at finding old friends restored alongside the new volumes Adam had, intentionally or not, added to Aziraphale’s collection. Dozing is, really, a kind word for what Crowley had been doing; it had, in fact, been the longest two days of his life, and he’d existed before the concept of a day had been invented. Between all of the arguing, the bookshop fire, the absolute drunk of hitting rock bottom, the drive through the M25 to Tadfield Air Base, the confrontation with Satan, the corporation-swapping, and all the rest of the emotional upheaval, Crowley had at that point only been running on his last three remaining brain cells. The thing is, those last three brain cells had been trying to stay awake to be supportive to Aziraphale, who had lost his corporation, his bookshop, and his faith, in that order but not entirely in that priority.

When Aziraphale had finally made his fourth round of the shop, glowing with a satisfactory joy, and had approached Crowley on the couch by saying, “my dear boy, I think I could actually sleep,” the only response Crowley’s three brain cells had been able to make was a noise not entirely unlike a cross between a car horn, an angry goose, and a somewhat addleplated lynx.

Aziraphale had bundled him upstairs to some sort of bed - the thing was, Crowley was fairly sure he’d been in this room before, and it was nothing but wine storage and old Georgette Heyer books - and had tucked him in under a marvelous duvet smelling like angelic miracles.

The thing - the thing Crowley remembered, more than the absolute luscious, delicious sleep he’d had over the next four days - the thing he remembered most was the scent of angel; Aziraphale hadn’t left his side the entire time.

———

Crowley throws the Bentley into its normal nonexistent parking spot with as much flair as he can manage. There are still too many people about, and it’s Christmas Eve: they should all be at home doing their horrid things with family and friends, rather than still being about in SoHo, for Go- somebody’s sake. He actually has to do a small miracle to ensure no one sees him open the door of the bookshop on the corner, whose bright-lit sign declares they are Very Much Closed for All Of The Holiday Season, And Then Some.

The stupid bell on the door rings as Crowley hangs up his peacoat - wet with fallen snow, at this point, and glistening - and his scarf. He recollects the dozen or so bags he’s brought from that market and yells, “Angel?”

He isn’t disappointed. Aziraphale appears from the doorway to the back rooms, and Crowley’s breath - that breath he doesn’t truly need - catches in his throat. The angel’s wearing tartan trousers, which would be an absolute tragedy, except that he has on a pale blue button-up with a pale cream cardigan over it, all thick cables and texture, and with a single button at his neck left open he looks so casually and comfortably delicious Crowley isn’t sure what to do. He certainly knows what he _wants_ to do - walk over, undo those glorious tortoiseshell buttons on the cardigan, and possibly fall to his knees - but he’s well aware that’s not a path that’s going to end well for him. 

Instead, Crowley readopts his swagger, and cocks a hip at his angel while rearranging the bags around his wrist. “Aziraphale! You look comfortable. Ready for another _Happy Holiday?_ ”

“Oh, bother,” says Aziraphale, crossing the room to take the bags off of Crowley’s arm so that he can toe off his boots; “look, your hair’s wet.” He reaches a hand up, brushes tentative fingers across Crowley’s - initially styled, normally perfect - fringe, and Crowley suppresses the shudder. “Is it still snowing?”

“Yes,” Crowley tells him, angling away to keep the reaming bags slotted up his forearm. “Big sick fat flakes. Too perfect.” He makes a face, to follow it up.

“A white Christmas,” Aziraphale sighs, and then he, too, makes a face and shakes his head. “This holiday has absolutely gotten out of hand. Come back, dear?”

Crowley follows into the back rooms, and — pauses, stops, in the doorframe, looking at the tree. Every year Aziraphale puts up a tree - he claims it’s because he likes the twinkling lights - and every year it’s been all gold and silver and glowing white, topped with an angel and pure white snowflakes dripping off every branch. This year, the tree is: different. All of the lights on it are white and red, with a bit of gold licked in through tinsel and ornaments, icicles dripping off the ends of the branches and these lovely simple balls hanging about: a burgundy wine-red, a cool-toned evergreen, a matte gold and a pearly white.

“Tree’s different,” Crowley announces, because he has to say something.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, gathering himself up next to Crowley - a bit closer than usual - and smiling at it. “I didn’t exactly feel so inspired to decorate for the heavenly realms, this year.” There’s a bit of a sniff, because Aziraphale really is just a bit of a bastard, and then he continues: “I sort-of thought you might like this variation more, anyway.”

Crowley looks it over, the mix of red and white and gold absolutely pleasant both to his corporation’s eyes and his snake-vision, the colors all blending together in something that isn’t screaming about holiness. “You might be right, angel,” he murmurs, and then pushes past Aziraphale to the small kitchen beyond.

Originally, Aziraphale’s bookshop merely contained the first floor, the second floor and that glorious balcony, and a tiny room in the back that led upstairs to an even tinier room on the upper floor. Decades of miracles - both of them - have created a little suite behind the parts for show: the first floor has their lounge, and the kitchenette, and a little dining space as well, while the second floor has a rather glorious bathroom and a bedroom Crowley’s made more luxurious every time he’s slept there. It modifies itself depending on both their expectations, and Crowley would read something into the fact that it answers to his miracles as well as Aziraphale’s, except that he’s fairly sure the angel doesn’t care as much about this hidden real estate as he might.

Crowley starts to unload the packages; at first, he does it all business-like, but after the third time Aziraphale has made that little _croon_ he does when faced with something delectable, he slows down. Whatever demonic bit of his brain he’d allowed to shop for him should maybe be given full reign more often; Crowley pulls out olives stuffed with feta, smoked salmon, steaming-hot edamame, and the noises Aziraphale makes just become more and more delectable. By the time Crowley pulls out the last item - a packet of fresh-soft snickerdoodles - and waves it under the angel’s nose, Aziraphale’s nearly whimpering in a way that makes Crowley wish he were hungry for something else. Choking that all down, he turns to the angel’s cupboards and gets out two plates; he will, in fact, partake in this, even if his plate will be a tenth of the weight of Aziraphale’s.

“Oh, my dear, you’ve outdone yourself,” Aziraphale murmurs, looking at the spread. It’s true; Crowley spots cheeses and charcuterie and pickled garlic and curried onions. What is this, this piece of him that wipes all other parts out, only wanting to lay gifts at Aziraphale’s feet like worship? It isn’t really a question; Crowley’s been doing this spot of thing since Rome, when he’d heard the sort of noises the angel made while eating: he only lies to himself because that’s a demonic thing to do.

“Help yourself,” Crowley says, and if the tone of his voice carries a longing he wishes he could hide, well, he figures he nearly has a right to it now. An entire Apocalypse, with his own yearning writ across his face; Aziraphale is too clever to not have seen it. And so Crowley stands across from him, picking out all the black olives because he likes them best, and longs for something else on his tongue for the longest of moments before he gathers himself back together.

———

September had hit. The realization - the revelation - they’d tried to adapt to the concept that they were perhaps free, but it was _hard:_ Crowley’d been loath to leave Aziraphale alone, for fear they’d come on him again but worse. And Aziraphale had been worse: a constantly revolving, desperate door of _come closer - step back_ as he oscillated between wanting to have dedicated, Principality-like faith in their own freedom and… his usual tentative approach to any of Heaven’s rules.

Honestly, they’d argued a lot in September; Crowley, who hadn’t trusted anything, had spent a number of nights outside the bookshop in the Bentley. He’d felt right vindicated when he’d learnt that Aziraphale had lit up Crowley’s entire flat with angelic wards, declaring to anyone in London that the person living here was under ethereal protection. They’d fought over it - all of it - constantly wrestling through the remnants of what the missed Armageddon had brought to them.

For Crowley, really, it had been one long slow anxiety attack as he realized that it could, in fact, be quite horrible to finally get the thing you’ve wanted for thousands of years. It was alright to want something you _couldn’t_ have, right, because that’s just a nice bit of Jealousy there, old Envy poking her head back up again. But when what you wanted was actually attainable… it was _devastating._ What if it still didn’t happen? What if it didn’t work? _What if Crowley fucked it all up?_

Crowley wanted, still: wanted in a way too dark and tight and tense and _yearning_ to make any sense of it. He knew it was coloring all of his reactions, but: he’d loved Aziraphale for _so long,_ he didn’t know how to exist without that love, and it had colored everything he’d done for millennia. It wasn’t exactly a new thing.

It had manifested in overprotectiveness for both of them, a couple of knights in armor circling around each other again, canceling each other out in very damp places. It was, at least, a familiar place to be. The free world, where they could just go _...do_ whatever they wanted, was very much not.

———

As it turns out, Aziraphale’s brought out brandy as a starter: Crowley is not entirely sure he wants to ask how Aziraphale got a hold of a Bottle of 1806 Reserve de l’Hotel De Paris Monte Carlo — he thinks it might be a nice story, but the fact that Aziraphale’s here offering up something so expensively delicious at the very start has Crowley a bit put off. Sure, he came here treating Aziraphale to all of the fresh flavors of the market he’d found, but: that’s Crowley’s job. _He_ comes in with the temptations, the delicious meld of scent and flavor; he’s the one treating the angel. Anytime Aziraphale comes forth with something luxurious, Crowley never understands his motive. He’s far better off being the one that produces all of their fabulous meals and tastes and doings. More comfortable that way.

But Aziraphale snaps his fingers to delicately clink ice into each glass - they’re crystal-cut, an intricate series of diamonds round the glass that Crowley loves running his fingers against - and then pours, _generously_ , and there’s this look in his eyes as he toasts Crowley that starts some kind of low simmer at the base of Crowley’s spine, even as he drinks. The brandy’s sharper than others he’s had: there’s vanilla, yes, and whiskey-peat, and smoke, but also the burn of something nearly bready, malty, something dark that sinks down down down his spine to the pause of it. It’s delicious. Crowley’s already near hissing about it.

“This is exquisite,” Aziraphale proclaims, as he pops a pickled asparagus into his mouth and follows it with a sip of the brandy. “You’ve outdone yourself, darling.”

These kinds of endearments had started appearing in Aziraphale’s language round October, and Crowley still isn’t used to them. “Barely meant to stop,” he tells Aziraphale. “The Bentley just couldn’t take the crowds, I assume.”

Aziraphale plucks a bit of cheese up on a toothpick and the face he makes while eating it is absurdly appreciative to the point of being erotic. “Your taste remains impeccable.”

“‘S not bad,” Crowley agrees, as he plucks up an olive. “How’s your week been, then?”

“Oh, the usual.” Aziraphale sounds as exhausted with humanity as he does any other week; Crowley watches as the angel attempts to assemble a crostini on the fresh French bread he’d brought: slice of baguette, the sundried tomato spread, with what looks like the Parmesan on top. “Too many people in here thinking an _expensive_ gift makes a good gift. As if I’m going to sell an Eliot below value because some idiot who has _never_ read it wants to make a gift to his wife!”

“Let’s be honest, angel,” Crowley says, and he turns himself round to face Aziraphale, sprawling one leg up on the couch and extending the other long across the floor. “Have you sold _any_ books in this last week?”

“How dare you,” Aziraphale breathes, his eyes alive with the intended insult. “I sold two.”

“Two books in a week,” Crowley croons back at him. “What an amazing profit on the holiday season.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes and his mouth settles in that prim frown that always makes Crowley want to laugh, want to reach out, want to — nevermind. “I sold a third edition Wilde,” he tells Crowley stiffly, “and a reprint of Keats. It’s the _holidays,_ Crowley.”

“Oh, calm down, angel,” Crowley drawls. “I’m aware neither of us enjoys this season. I’m asking, not trying to get a rise out of you.”

To his surprise, Aziraphale bunches in on himself somewhat. He mutters, “I wouldn’t really know,” and for some reason, that hits Crowely a bit hard, all things considered.

“As if,” he starts, gesturing wide round the bookshop. “I’m only making fun, angel, same as I always have.”

Aziraphale looks at him, and Crowley stops, a bit frozen: the angel’s eyes seem normal, that strange blend of blue-grey licked with green and amber - the color that Crowley hasn’t found a word for in the thousands of languages his snake-tongue has learnt to speak - and yet there’s something in that look that stops him, some sort of edge of emotion he’s never seen Aziraphale show before. 

“Um,” Crowley says, and has a generous sip of brandy.

But then Aziraphale sighs, and his shoulders come back downwards. “I’m sorry, my dear. It’s been — there’s a lot on my mind, at the moment.”

Crowley isn’t sure how to read that look. If Aziraphale didn’t want him to ask, he wouldn’t have brought it up, but: there’s a mix of hopes in his face, as if he wants Crowley to say something as much as he wants Crowley’s silence on the matter. It figures, though. First major Heavenly holiday away from, well, Heaven. Of course Aziraphale’s a bit out of sorts. 

Crowley mentally casts through the things he could say, the responses he could make, but he isn’t quite sure how to address it in a way that doesn’t pertain to the first Christmas _he’d_ spent away from Heaven, and that’s the last reminder Aziraphale needs right now.

“Tell me about this brandy,” he says instead, because he’s already waited too long, and he’d really rather not fight with the angel. This holiday is depressing enough already. “A bottle like this isn’t something you just buy off the shelf, angel.”

A wild look of relief flickers over Aziraphale’s face for a single brief moment before it all settles down into his usual benign glow. “Well, as you _must_ know, I was down in France, following a festival.”

Crowley pops another olive into his mouth and sits back to listen.

———

By October they’d hit some sort of rhythm, a routine they could work with between the two of them. At this point they weren’t really entirely sure that Heaven and Hell were in fact going to stay away as per Adam’s _suggestion,_ but they also felt like, if they’d saved the world, they’d probably saved it for more than hiding in each other’s closets, yes?

October had seen them out strolling together. It had seen them attempting little miracles, both occult and ethereal, while together, and watching while the consequences remained negligible. It had seen the first night they’d spent apart — although they’d spent it on the phone, Crowley’s mobile connected with Aziraphale’s ridiculous land line, talking until round four when Crowley had dozed off and Aziraphale had gladly spent an hour listening to his breathing before hanging up.

October had also seen a strange crossing: Aziraphale, laying his hand more generously on Crowley’s arm; Crowley, reaching out to guide Aziraphale at his lower back; a brushing of knuckles when sitting or walking that could, could, maybe could be accidental. Nicknames like _darling_ and _love_ and _dearest_ , for example. The slow rumble of something that had been buried for centuries, low and dark, starting to wake up.

———

They’re three brandies in, and Crowley’s trying to get refills of all the delicacies he’d brought over, except that he’s laughing too hard: Aziraphale’s up, waving an empty glass, and attempting to give a lecture about goodwill towards men but all he’s been doing is a spot-on imitation of the Archangel fucking Gabriel, which has Crowley hooting up to Heaven in laughter while he attempts for the third time to open Aziraphale’s fridge. 

_“Oh Mary,”_ Aziraphale intones, and Crowley loses it once, more, his grip on the pickled beets failing such that they roll back into their place on the fridge shelf somewhat awkwardly. He can’t help it; he conjures up his red scarf from the foyer and pulls it round his head.

_“What are you?”_ Crowley intones, falling to his knees and wrapping the scarf round his head; it’s a gesture he’s familiar with, having tried out the female form in that age, and he momentarily considers regrowing his hair out before his drunken brain comes back into focus. “Who are you?”

Aziraphale snickers, all dirty and genuine. He waves his hand in a generous gesture and creates the most ostentatious halo over his head that Crowley’s ever seen. “My poor dear,” he says, and it’s so close to Gabriel’s horribly offputting accent that Crowley ends up choking laughter into his own sleeve. “I am a _messenger_ from your God, can’t you tell?”

“I’m sorry,” Crowley intones, pitching his voice towards the way they spoke in that time, being too familiar. “You’re too bright, and I am afraid.”

Aziraphale bursts out laughing at that, and ends up saying, “my darling,” before he manages to bring himself together and upright - and suddenly the light round his head is brighter than ever, and to both of their surprise Aziraphale speaks the words calmly and kindly from his mouth: “I bring you tidings of great joy.”

Crowley winces. This moment - this light - this is not for him. “Right, angel,” he says, trying to make a joke of it, and likely failing. “Sorry. May need more to drink for this.” He unwraps the scarf from his head and gathers it in his hand, reaching up to set it on one of the many cluttered armtables nearby.

To his surprise, Aziraphale’s right there, before him.

“No, Crowley,” he says, and Crowley can’t help the way his eyes fix on Aziraphale’s face. “My fault. Come, come sit.” He lets Aziraphale lead him back to the couch and reclaims his drink.

“My apologies,” Aziraphale says, staring into his glass. Crowley has another sip. He feels like they’re on the edge of something, and he somewhat needs the assistance of Aziraphale’s magic trick brandy. “I’m not entirely sure what got into me.”

“Don’t worry,” Crowley offers, sinking back down into his corner of the couch: legs tossed everywhere, arm across the back, head tipped back. “Season’s hard on both of us.” He also lifts the brandy, toasting it in Aziraphale’s general direction.

“And yet, that’s not it,” Aziraphale murmurs, and Crowley watches as his angel shifts himself on the couch, adjusting until he’s looking at Crowley, tucked up in his own corner as best an angel with the straightest spine known to God might sit. 

Crowley looks away. Aziraphale has been looking at him like this more and more lately, and he isn’t quite sure what to do with it. His heart - that dark piece buried deep inside all of the anguished nonsense he deals with daily - wants to consider that Aziraphale might mean the weight of that look, the way it rests on Crowley’s tongue like a delicacy Aziraphale is mentioning they may want to share between them. The rest of his century-weary cynical corporation is saying that Aziraphale’s just being extra - something - for the season. 

“How about those olives,” he says instead, and a strange look passes over Aziraphale’s face before he adopts his usual beaming smile and starts praising the sea-salt brine of them.

———

November had been a month of status quo: a holding pattern, reaching a state of equilibrium and just resting with it. Crowley had slept more; Aziraphale had spent more time outside the bookshop, leaving it for a day or two at a time, resuming his habit of traveling for estate sales and other special book events. November is a sleepy month, the way the days grow shorter and colder, the sharp edges of October ceding way into the gentle dark of December.

The equilibrium they’d struck had remained _more_ than anything they’d ever done before. Most days had seen them in contact, even if just by phone; many nights saw them together, recounting their deeds of the day or reminiscing over the past or simply drinking in mutual silence, Aziraphale with a book and Crowley usually on his mobile, trying to invent ways to troll Twitter that were worse than JK Rowling.

It was a pause, a period to adjust, to let all of the words still floating in the air from their arguments and announcements and eschatological discussions sink down, onto the floor, where they could finally be swept up and taken away. Crowley watched, as Aziraphale became even more comfortable with the nicknames, more free with his own brief touches. Crowley watched, as Aziraphale started throwing him looks that were difficult to read in the dark of the late night, when Crowley had tossed off his coat and vest and lay sprawled barefoot across the bookshop couch. Crowley waited. And Crowley wanted.

———

“What about the actual birth, though?” Crowley drawls his words through an additional three glasses of brandy and the end of a bottle of Bordeaux they’d bought in ‘05. He’s much more relaxed - part of this is the alcohol, and part of it is the roasted chestnuts he managed to steal from Aziraphale - and while Aziraphale seems to be giving him the same strange look, he’s now hanging backwards off of the sofa, his ankles crossed over the back of it and one hand on his stomach. It may be taking a minor miracle to continue drinking from his glass, but to be honest it’s the least of his worries. 

He’s had to turn the world upside-down to keep himself from reaching out to Aziraphale, to responding to that look the way he’s always wanted to: physical contact, a touch or a graze or a kiss, a dip of heads and a brush of hands. It’s alright, it isn’t the time; it’s alright, it’s alright, he can hang like an ornament on Aziraphale’s tree and everything will be fine.

“You can’t tell me it was really that easy,” Crowley finishes, slurping at his upside-down wine glass.

“You’ve read the account,” Aziraphale challenges. “Where were you?”

“Ehhhh.” Crowley gestures wildly with one hand, trying to encompass a demonic order that happened over two thousand years ago. “They told us to stay away, really. Too much angelic interference. They had a party up in Jerusalem, but I, ehhhh, wasn’t feeling it.”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale says, nodding. “I heard Sandalphon had a decent time breaking that up while the rest of us were on angelic duty.”

“Right, well, you’ve never told me this one,” Crowley says. He sets his glass to sit in mid-air and rights himself on the couch, slouching back into the corner and leveling a look at Aziraphale. He’d lost his sunglasses in a momentary drinking game they’d played, so Aziraphale is settling and standing clear in his sight, hands on hips and his smile fondly crooked. He’d also lost his composure a few drinks back, and he was feeling strangely unanchored here, and curious. He’d always been curious.

“Here,” Aziraphale says, filling his glass with what is now a cheerful, fresh Riesling; “do you want any more cheese, darling?”

_Darling_ isn’t new. And yet, Crowley still melts a bit internally every time he hears it. He wasn’t even aware he was missing it - or wanting it - until the first time he’d heard it fall from Aziraphale’s lips. Since then, it’s become something Crowley — he won’t say needs, because he’s never needed anything from Aziraphale other than his time and attention; but a thing that hits him _desperately,_ deeply, from the soles of his feet up through the halo he no longer has.

“I want the story, angel,” he drawls, leveling Aziraphale with the kind of look he knows, now, makes the angel blush— now that Aziraphale is letting it happen. He’s rewarded with that pink flush he loves, high across Aziraphale’s rounded cheeks. “Go get your nibbles and _confess_.”

“Crowley,” Azirpahale admonishes, although the flush deepens. “Indecent.”

Crowley grins, wide and loose, over at the angel; “Demon,” he reminds Aziraphale, and turns his glass right-side up to take a really long, slurpy sip.

Aziraphale vanishes long enough to return with a plate full of Crowley’s market findings, and then to Crowley’s surprise, the angel sits down on the other end of the couch. Since Crowley’s managed to sprawl across maybe two-thirds of it, it ends up that Aziraphale arranges his thigh right up against Crowley’s toes. It shouldn’t burn as it does, this casual touch, but it’s unusual enough Crowley can feel it run up the base of his calf-bones.

“I’ve never told you this because the _actual_ story is somewhat… embarrassing to Heaven, just so you know.” Aziraphale shakes his head and gives a little huff. “That being said, I’m not necessarily ...going to protect them on _that_ account. So,” he says, and adds this sly little smile that warms Crowley right up from the inside, “I guess I can tell you the Nativity story as it happened, _now_.”

Crowley relaxes himself back farther into the couch, which maybe has the side-effect of pushing his toes beneath Aziraphale’s thick thigh. Neither of them blink as it happens. He likes the way _now_ sounds; _now_ is the same as _to the world_ is the same as _our own side._

“So I was told a few years before it went into effect,” Aziraphale begins, shoulders wiggling into a comfortable arrangement like he always does when he starts a story. “You weren’t around — Rome, I believe, although I never quite knew—”

“Yesss,” Crowley hisses, because Aziraphale looks delicious and divine as he settles in with that absolutely smug smile on his face and Crowley’s hungry for it like a snake. “Roman temptation scene. Quite lucrative. Continue.”

“Well, once it all became clear what was happening, I was told to follow Michael’s directions to a certain inn and reserve the entire space, so that Mary could deliver the Son of God in comfort and safety. I just had the side job, as usual; Gabriel got to deliver the message and guide them.” Aziraphale’s shudder this time is entirely displeasure. “The Star they speak of, you know, that was his doing.”

“Pretentious bloody prick,” Crowley mutters. Aziraphale makes a face like he’s considering an argument, but in the end he just gives Crowley that sly agreeing smile again. 

Aziraphale straightens his shoulders after popping a piece of cheese into his mouth. “The directive from Michael came down, so there I am, at the Inn, reassuring that poor owner and his wife that they would be _heavily_ compensated for their troubles. I’ve got the entire inn reserved, and here I am with their two eldest daughters, readying the largest room for baby delivery. Oh, Crowley, I miracled up the _finest_ pillows — _and_ I remembered the hot water and soap, like you’d mentioned, and had it all ready to prevent germs for her. It was a small-scale paradise,” and then Azirpahale wrings his fingers together. “As much as I was allowed, that is.”

Crowley wriggles his body into a somewhat more upright position, the better to stare at Aziraphale. “That’s not what wasss written, though,” he says. “What happened?”

“Well, if you must know.” Aziraphale pops an orange wedge into his mouth. “I infer there was, erm. An… Incident. With Gabriel.” There’s a pause. “And a donkey.”

Crowley snorts, out loud, his imagination picking up the thread. “An _incident?_ You can’t just leave it there.”

“An incident,” Aziraphale states, making sure that his emphasis is particularly dramatic and ticking the pieces off on his fingers, “involving a donkey, an Archangel, an unfavorably aimed kick, said Archangel’s sudden understanding of the sensitivity of the human male’s certain, ahem, _organs,_ and…” The pause was so Aziraphale, like the eager way he led into one of his magic tricks; Crowley drank it all down. “An unfortunately placed pile of horse excrement.”

He bursts out laughing. “Angel,” he manages to get out around his helpless chuckling, “you’ve been sitting on this story for over two thousand years and you’ve never _told me?_ ”

Aziraphale wiggles a bit, looking pleased at the way his delivery has landed. Crowley can’t stop laughing, rough in the back of his throat. “Gabriel _forbid_ it,” Aziraphale tells him. “We were all sworn to silence! Someone told Michael, you see, and the fallout was…” Aziraphale shudders. “The Christ Child was at least four before they were even speaking to each other again.”

“I can’t believe it,” Crowley says, his voice going high on it because he’s still fucking laughing. “Gabriel got kicked in the nads while delivering his _glad tidings._ Angel, I’m about to _lose it_.”

“By the time it was resolved,” Aziraphale says primly, “Mary and Joseph had been turned away from the inn, because it was, erm.” He swallows. “Well, the owner thought all the rooms had been reserved.”

Crowley’s now hooting in laughter, the back of his hand in his mouth to stifle it, teethmarks in his skin as he attempts to not drown out the story.

“So here _I_ am,” Aziraphale continues, with relish; “I’m here in the inn working to create the perfect birthing chamber, and that _idiot_ Gabriel leaves the humans alone for five minutes to get his idiotic _robes clean,_ and they end up out with the animals, poor little Jesus Christ born in the hay by the time Gabriel catches up. Do you know what they had to do?” He leans in, eyes sparkling like it’s a delicious secret. “Michael had to _reposition the star_ to lead to the stables, for the poor other angels and shepherds and everyone else. She and Gabriel had it out for _years_ after the birth.”

Crowley’s melted against the back of the couch and he’s laughing so hard he’s barely breathing and he’s ignoring the fact that Aziraphale has pulled both of Crowley’s legs across his lap because he’s just picturing Gabriel’s stupid face looking into a goddamn stable and a manger like — “So what,” Crowley says, still hooting, “they just _sold it_ in the Bible as a modesty tale when it was reality just a grand cock-up?”

“Exactly!” Aziraphale sounds gleeful. “Gabriel, of course, attempted to blame it on me. And of course I hadn’t been at the door when Joseph had knocked, but I was busy creating the best delivery room I could at the moment, and — to be honest,” he says, leaning even farther in, to the point where Crowley stretches himself a bit to take advantage of it. “Michael was more interested in pinning it on Gabriel than on me,” Aziraphale admits, all comfortably smug. “My timing was, well, er.” He glances over at Crowley, coy now, eyelashes fluttering.

“Don’t you dare say it, angel,” Crowley drawls, but he’s appreciative. Aziraphale looks _so good_ when he’s winning: confident, somewhat puffed-up, all pompous over his own moves. Once upon a time, these moods had been spare, few and far-between, and hadn’t necessarily manifested as real expressions of joy. Now, Aziraphale looks at his own successes within their new context and knows exactly which pieces he can be proud of, like the subtly improper part of his personality has reevaluated exactly how good he is at his own game. He really is a bit of a bastard after all.

Aziraphale’s glance-over is entirely hot, weighted and slick with that sly smile and the echo of anticipation. “Don’t think I need to,” the angel murmurs, and Crowley finds that he’s almost uncomfortably hot, leaning forwards towards Aziraphale, leaning up against the back of the couch, his cheek to the fabric, giving Aziraphale a smile that could be labeled as _dreamy_ if he decided to not have standards.

“So they fudged the ssstory then,” Crowley hisses, not moving from his slouch, equally delighted and horrified at his own behavior. “The entire story!”

Aziraphale levels a _sassy_ look at him that rings through to the back of his skull. “Most of the Bible is a paraphrase, you _know_ that, Crowley.”

“Let me enjoy it,” Crowley urges. “Look, it’s almost ironic. Hell manages to fuck up the delivery of the Antichrist, only to discover that a bit near two thousand years ago, Heaven bollocksed up the delivery of the original Christ Child. There’s something enjoyable in that, angel.” He grins.

To his surprise, the look Aziraphale gives him is entirely new: something both intrigued and intriguing. “Irony indeed,” Aziraphale murmurs, and somehow it’s enough to change the entire mood in the air: suddenly everything’s thicker and _more,_ and Crowley’s aware his eyes are wider than he intended.

“Angel,” Crowley says, and it catches in his throat. He wants to ask Aziraphale what’s going on, and yet - he doesn’t want to reach too far, to stretch the bridge until it breaks - but he’s looking into Aziraphale’s face and it feels like the angel is waiting for him to ask — eyes wide, 

“Is it irony, or ineffable?” Aziraphale’s voice is low, and there’s something sparking in his eyes now that makes the hair on the back of Crowley’s arms stand up. “Look at all the things we’ve done, Crowley, basically canceling each other out for — for centuries, for millennia.”

Maybe a year ago, Crowley would have said something — pointed out that he’d been saying that all along, that Aziraphale was late to this particular party. He’d learned too, though, a patience of a sort when it came to Aziraphale’s slow but absolute redevelopment of priorities. Mainly he’d learnt that he didn’t really enjoy hurting Aziraphale, even when he might have deserved a reminder or two.

“So this is all what, then,” Crowley says, gesturing around. “Just a game of dominoes? One by one by one, making sure everything stays even?” He grins up at the angel, turning his face against the back of the couch to better see Aziraphale, so that Aziraphale knows he’s jokingly drunk, or drunkenly joking, or a combination of the two. “So what’s the point, then? Why have opposite sides at all? Where’s the endgame? Just have two babies duke it out in a crib, winner gets to be, ehhh, employee of the month or something.”

Something crosses over Aziraphale’s face — something a little bit like relief, maybe, paired with a sharp fondness. “Neither you nor I can fathom the faintest guess as to what it’s all about,” he says. “But I don’t think that means our efforts have been wasted over the years.”

“O’yeah?” Crowley sits up, reluctantly pulling his legs off of Aziraphale’s lap so that he can lean forward a bit, better look Aziraphale in the eye. “What have we got, then? Besides, you know, the whole not having an Armageddon thing and all. I mean, that’s pretty good, if that’s the endgame. I’ll take it.”

“Not only that,” Aziraphale tells him, and his voice is so soft that Crowley’s breath catches in his throat. “We have this.” He gestures between the two of them, and his eyes are sparkling with fondness and there’s a smile on his mouth Crowley may have never seen before. “We have _us._ ”

Crowley finds, suddenly, that he can’t breathe.

———

The thing is — the thing is: December has been moving slowly, but it’s moving again. Their equilibrium is, softly, slowly, shifting, although Crowley can’t really tell what direction. December is a season of the dark: of crackling fires, and blankets, and stark trees, and celebrations. It’s hard on them in different ways.

_All is calm; All is bright._ All is _not_ calm, what with the low tide, what with this undertow, the pull that starts at Crowley’s scale-studded toes and increases until it’s pulling at his very veins, the hot blood running through this corporation made hotter with wanting and desire and things he won’t put words to. All is _not_ bright, as his skeleton-heart burns in his chest, black-dark and gaping, a magnetic hole that will swallow everything if only he lets it. _Tender and mild;_ these are things Crowley hasn’t looked at, hasn’t touched, in centuries; and while his hands might cup them like treasures, he doesn’t remember how to do anything other than shudder and pass it on to Aziraphale. 

_Silent Night,_ Crowley ends up thinking after every night he spends at the bookshop in December: sobering up to drive home, holding onto some sort of goodnight gesture from Aziraphale as if it’s tangible rather than some platonic platitude. Crowley goes home, opens the whiskey, waters his plants and yells at himself over and over: hopes are not the same as potentials, and dreams are not the same as roads, and even now if Aziraphale reaches out to touch him - back of the wrist; curve of his shoulder; cheekbone - Crowely can look into that gesture a thousand times and see a thousand reasons why it’s nothing. 

He held out this long, but now, in the month of hibernation and hunger, Crowley is starving. Crowley’s mouth is aching for just one taste, be it fingerprints or nerves or lips, and he’s nearly constantly quivering at the thought he may not get it.

———

He’s still frozen, leaning somewhat towards Aziraphale, his saucy grin fading as his mouth registers the way there’s _meaning_ in how Aziraphale says _us,_ as his mind wraps its way around the look in Aziraphale’s eyes.

Aziraphale reaches out to cup his cheek, leans in, and kisses him.

Nothing unfreezes for Crowley except for his mouth. He cannot, is not, is — is entirely incapable of _not_ responding to this lifeline, this electrical socket, this pure water offered for him to drink. The rest of his body has lit up in a panic while his lips move against Aziraphale’s, gentle - so gentle - which is good, the response, because every single neuron in this human corporation has hung up the phone and thrown it at a wall. 

Aziraphale pulls away with this small noise - so small! Tiny, even, a breath of a gasp in the back of his throat - and Crowley’s eyes are open, wider than they’ve ever been, as his entire body continues to stall like a car stuck between fourth and fifth.

Aziraphale’s eyes flick from Crowley’s down to his mouth, back to his eyes, then sort of fly downwards over his body until he says, “Oh, my dear, I’m sorry, I should have asked, or—”

The noise that comes out of Crowley’s throat is almost definitely a sob of some sort, but it doesn’t matter, because Crowley brings his own hands up to cradle Aziraphale’s face and leans in, slow but determined, like the inevitability of Eden, to take Aziraphale’s mouth again.

He can’t help it. His hands are shaking; Aziraphale’s come up to cover his, to steady them, as Crowley tries to hold on gently. He’s kissing — it isn’t wanton, but he can’t stop it, can’t hold back: it’s _passionate,_ leaking feelings all over the place; they’re seeping out of his coal-black heart, and he can’t help it. Aziraphale’s mouth opens and Crowley immediately dives deeper: tongue, and then teeth, a gentle brush against Aziraphale’s lower lip that produces some angelic sound Crowley would literally be happy to die hearing. 

Part of him still hasn’t caught up. Part of him cannot stop kissing Aziraphale now that it’s started. Part of him is extremely grateful for the way Aziraphale pulls back, separates their mouths by inches, looks him in the eye.

“Oh, my darling,” Aziraphale says. He brings a thumb up to trace over Crowley’s eyebrow; he runs it down Crowley’s cheekbone and then presses it against his lips for a moment before drawing back. “Dearest. Please tell me you’re alright.”

“Angel,” Crowley says. It’s more than a sob. It’s six thousand years of loving the absolute arsehole of a bastard sitting on the couch in front of him. It’s six millennia of having to hide these very undemonic feelings from _everyone_ : the angel, Heaven and Hell both, even the humans they’d befriended. It’s - it’s - it’s almost too much, and he knows he’s shaking like an idiot, but parts of his corporation have just gone the fuck offline and he doesn’t even care, because Aziraphale kissed him.

Aziraphale _kissed him_.

“Angel,” Crowley says again. Right now, it’s the only word that exists in his head.

“I know,” Aziraphale whispers. “It’s been so long, my love, so long and so _much_ , and I haven’t been there the way I should have. But I can’t help it, Crowley, I don’t want to wait any longer for you to know - for us to try - for wherever we’re going next.” He swallows. “It isn’t just me, is it?”

“Angel,” Crowley repeats. Some small emergency portion of his brain starts kicking him long and hard enough for him to find words. “Fuck. Of course it isn’t just you.”

“I want you,” Aziraphale says plainly, “in every way my soul knows how to want, and then some.”

Crowley chokes again at that, because it’s so close to the ache, that song in his own heart that declares the same thing. “You’ve had me, Aziraphale. You’ve had me forever.”

“I’m scared,” Aziraphale confesses. “I’m still scared. Even after we fooled Heaven and Hell, even after Adam reset everything and told them all not to interfere — I’m so scared that I’ll lose you.” He takes a deep shuddering breath. “But I’m not going to be so scared that I never get to _have_ you. Not anymore.”

“Angel.” It’s all Crowley can say. He wonders if he’s asleep - if he’s dreaming - but none of his dreams have been this genuine, this tender. He reaches out, his hands clasping Aziraphale’s, squeezing at them as if this pressure contains all the words jumbling up at the back of his throat.

“I told you I’ve had a lot on my mind lately,” Aziraphale confesses. “I’ve been, well, thinking about this. About _us._ ” His thumbs stroke over Crowley’s knuckles, reading them like Braille. “And I need you to know, Crowley, I need to say…” His voice trails off. Crowley squeezes his hands again: he’s here, he’s listening, his every atom is tuned to the frequency of Aziraphale’s heart. He always has been. 

“You are my best friend,” says Aziraphale. “My dearest love. My most important thing.” He pauses. “And I would like to love you, both as an angel and a human, if you would let me.”

The sound that escapes Crowley’s throat is even more like a sob. He can’t believe he’s hearing this; and yet he can. Some part of Crowley, deep down inside that dark cavity the humans call a heart, knows that they’ve been working towards this for a while, and that their cancelled apocalypse and the flip-flop trick on Heaven and Hell has been the initiator for this new development. The rest of him has been occupied keeping a leash on his _own_ feelings, and Crowley has been so careful to not let that part hope.

“And I know I haven’t given you any warning,” Aziraphale continues, “nor have I given you time to gather your own words, but I need to know, my love. I need to hear it in your voice. Tell me how you feel.”

_Oh, God - Satan - heaven - hell — someone. Something. Everything._

Crowley swallows. He’s had this wall up for so long. “Angel,” he starts, “ _Aziraphale.”_

Aziraphale watches; waits. The look on his face is so loving, so kind, and Crowley sighs, that odd space in his chest clenching up in a way that’s nearly painful with how good it feels. There’s an ache starting there that’s pooling in his palms, running down his spine, the feeling of longing coming up to the surface that it might be — filled.

Crowley decides that the time for artifice, for some answer disguised in flash and slick, for denying these things: that time is long past.

“I love you more than any demon has loved anything in the history of the world,” says Crowley. “I’ve loved you longer than you can know. There isn’t a single piece of me that knows how to exist without loving you.”

It hurts, yes. His heart’s clenching again, and his bones ache with it, with the power of this feeling.

Aziraphale’s face breaks out in a smile so bright the Lord Herself couldn’t dim it, and Crowley closes his eyes, overwhelmed.

He feels the angel lean forward. Soft kisses are brushed over his eyelids, at his cheekbones, the corner of his mouth. “Crowley, my dearest,” Aziraphale whispers. “May I take you to my bed?”

It’s such an Aziraphale way to say it. Antiquated, romantic, and it _hurts_ the way Crowley yearns for it. “Yes,” he whispers against Aziraphale’s mouth, “yes.”

At that Aziraphale kisses him again, all alight and glowing, and Crowley simply gives in to that demanding, fantastic, frustrating mouth. Aziraphale is kissing him with _determination,_ with the kind of focus he gives extravagant desserts and books that need repair, and Crowley melts beneath it. Aziraphale’s tongue is demanding in his mouth, and Crowley yields. He barely knows what’s happening — except that every single molecule in this corporation is focused on the angel, angel, _Angel._

They’re still sitting side-by-side on the couch, which makes it awkward to touch and hold. Aziraphale solves this problem by climbing directly into Crowley’s lap, straddling Crowley’s hips. Crowley looks up at him, eyes wide; he’s sure they’ve leaked golden to the very edges. He nearly feels like he might discorporate.

“You’re so lovely,” Aziraphale tells him. “So very lovely. I’ve wanted—” Crowley watches Aziraphale’s eyes flutter shut, his mouth open, and he feels something in the air like growing static: like a power building, but left chained for the moment. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this forever,” Aziraphale breathes.

Crowley can’t stop his hands; they began resting on the angel’s wide hips, but they’re now running up and down his sides, slowly, fingers spread to take in as much of this flesh with his palms as he can. “I know,” Crowley says, which is _stupid_ because he doesn’t know, he didn’t know, he’s never been sure what Aziraphale wants: but he _does_ know the feeling, the want, the need. “Some days I could barely stop my hands from reaching out.” It’s a confession, soft and pure. Entirely undemonic. Crowley is beyond caring.

“Don’t stop them now,” says Aziraphale, with a little noise that might be a laugh. His own hands are making long circles on Crowley’s chest. “It’s so _human_ , perhaps, but most of our pleasures are, aren’t they?” Those hands, solid and sure, come up to Crowley’s sheets, then tangle into his hair. The tug of it feels _delectable_ and Crowley can’t stop the moan as he lets his head be pulled back. “Oh, the lines of you,” says Aziraphale, and he dips his mouth down to lick at the junction of jaw right below Crowley’s ear.

The sensation is unbearable. Crowley feels his entire corporation fizzing to life, steeped in his own emotional moment, and he groans softly as Aziraphale’s mouth moves along his jawline, then down to his neck. “This is what you are,” Aziraphale says, “this is how you are in this world, and this is how I love you here,” with his kisses turning to bites, sucking at Crowley’s skin. 

Crowley in turn lets his hands come up to Aziraphale’s hair, letting his fingers entangle with those brilliant curls. “Angel,” he says, because that static feeling is building inside Crowley as well: all the feelings he’s been keeping away, keeping locked down, they’re all clamoring to be let go. He isn’t sure he can keep them down; he isn’t sure he wants to. ”Angel, I can’t—”

“Don’t.” It’s a breath against his ear; a puff of air across his lips. “I don’t want you to hold back. Not anymore.”

Crowley’s bursting with it. His mouth feels empty; he presses it to Aziraphale’s, over and over, demanding and needy. “Take me to bed.”

———

They both love the holidays, and they both hate them as well. Some years they dabble in Hanukkah - Aziraphale loves the candles, but Crowley had vetoed that this year - and talk about the way Aziraphale had miracled the oil and the way Crowley had been lurking around the shadows, ostensibly in demonic observance but in reality making sure food stores remained fresh, and they’ll discuss the people they remember and the delicious meal Crowley had taken them out for, afterwards, when all eyes would be on the Jews and no one would be looking for them.

There have been years they go full-on pagan - much to Crowley’s glee - but Aziraphale knows that many of today’s traditions began in the dark nights and glowing fires of Yule, and he can respect that. They’ll make sure to have goat or lamb, in recognition, and debate for hours which of the traditions came from where, and have a jolly good time doing it.

This year, though, after the non-Apocalypse, they both silently agreed to stay within the canon of their own world. No need to get experimental or wild. A simple Christmas tree, the way any other human would decorate it. The way anyone in their world - on their side - would have done.

———

Crowley barely notices anything about the room that they’re in when they land; he’s on top of Aziraphale now, and whereas he’d let Aziraphale lead before, Crowley is _dying:_ whatever it is that’s inside him is nearly bursting out of his corporation and he needs, he needs, he _needs._ He nearly attacks Aziraphale’s mouth, desperate, and Aziraphale’s all tongue and teeth in response; he bites at Crowley’s lower lips, tugs, and Crowley half-sobs and feels his entire body jerk. 

Aziraphale’s corporation is _clearly_ male - as is Crowley’s; these days, anyway - and the feel of _that_ is so sharply good, the decadent press of hard heat. Crowley’s hips are moving on their own, grinding sloppy circles; Aziraphale’s legs are wrapped around him, returning the motion, and Crowley feels like he’s at the very edges of his skin, every single nerve of this human body lit up with electric light.

He realizes he’s panting into Aziraphale’s ear, a series of desperate little moans he never thought he’d hear himself make. 

“It’s okay,” Aziraphale whispers to him. “Let it go, my love.”

Crowley groans, trying for one last moment to hold back this tide — and then _breaks_ with it, breaks open; he holds on to Aziraphale, shuddering, as all of his wretched emotions break free. 

He feels them as they pass: it’s this dark claim of possession, a ribbon of want, with a deep river of lust a million miles wide. It’s the wrath of being protective; the greed of wanting more, the pride in being the hero. All seven of the best sins are in there, tangled up in what Crowley really is: a demon, who’s in love, in whatever way he can.

But woven within are streams of light he never expected: the wonder he’s always felt at Aziraphale’s goodness; that rush of happiness whenever the angel’s face lights up; and glittering overtop of all of it there’s love, love, Crowley’s dark and most secret love, pouring out around them.

He looks down. Aziraphale is crying. “No,” Crowley says, freezing, reaching out with stumbling thumbs to brush the tears off his cheeks; “I don’t mean — let me pull it back—”

“Oh, dearest, no,” Aziraphale whispers. “It’s so _beautiful.”_ One of his hands leaves Crowley’s hair to cup his face again, bringing his head down until their foreheads touch. “Let me show you.”

And Crowley feels a rising tide from Aziraphale. It is, of course, bright like sunlight sparkling off of a stream, sharp in its blessedness — but to Crowley’s surprise there are undertows as dark as his own. There’s a deep-running sense of pure, physical greed, a lustful want of simple touch. There’s a very long strain of guilt, thick with shame, reflecting back on centuries. And there’s a selfishness trailing through, a self-indulgent hedonistic claim that Crowley feels might swallow him.

But above it all there flows the collection of fondness, affection, an adoring love that shines like a balm over all of it. Crowley’s already wide-open, split apart, and it hits him, filling in all of his empty spaces until he feels raw and ragged with it all. He isn’t sure how much more he can take; he tries to say, _Angel,_ but they aren’t really in that dimension anymore—

And then he’s back, in his body, shuddering with waves of emotion; tucked up against Aziraphale, who’s breathing hard and clinging to Crowley as if they’ve both come through some sort of trial. It honestly feels like a climax: that rush of heat, the dissipating tenderness, the way they still feel intermingled.

Crowley sees, once he lifts his head, that Aziraphale still has tears in his eyes: but he’s smiling, face flushed, breath harsh. “Oh, my dear boy,” Aziraphale says, carding fingers through Crowley’s hair. “All of that? After all this time?”

Again, Crowley can’t say anything but the truth. “Since the beginning, angel. Wanted to put my mark on you.”

Aziraphale’s kissing him again. After the release of their emotional energies, it’s grounding in a way: something entirely of this corporation. In-between kisses, Aziraphale murmurs, “Despite everything. Despite every time I—”

“Yesss, angel,” Crowley says, and he lets Aziraphale roll them over again, lets the angel’s weight press him into the bed. “It’s always been for you.”

“I need to touch you,” Aziraphale whispers. “After all of that, I need to - I _want_ to - have you in the human way, my love.”

Despite the aftershocks of angelic adoration and desire still flicking along his nerves, Crowley’s corporation in fact agrees with Aziraphale’s idea. Crowley snaps his fingers, and they’re both naked, and he was _not_ prepared for the feeling of all of that warm angelskin against his own.

“Oh,” he gasps, and Aziraphale hums at it. 

Crowley turns his lips to the junction of Aziraphale’s neck and shoulder, that sensitive place; he can’t stop from mouthing along Aziraphale’s collarbone, this wide plain of cream always hidden beneath so many layers. Aziraphale has his head tipped back, inviting, and Crowley attempts teeth, needing to feel the give of that flesh. Aziraphale groans at it, low and guttural, and Crowley sinks his teeth into the tendon of Aziraphale’s neck on the other side once he’s made his way across the broad expanse of the angel’s chest.

“Go on,” Aziraphale breathes. “Mark me.”

He whimpers as he sucks at the spot, something primal in him enjoying the feel of Aziraphale’s skin in his mouth, between his teeth, at his mercy except not, never, nothing to ever hurt this angel. He can feel the holiness buzzing right beneath the weave of this corporation’s flesh, tempting him to bite down harder. Crowley withdraws and admires his mark, bruising purple-into-blue, an obvious trace of his mouth.

“Angel,” he murmurs, coming back to pull Aziraphale’s head down for a kiss. “Oh, angel.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and it’s ringing with adoration, melting Crowley further into the mattress. “Tell me what you want, love.”

Crowley’s awareness _slams_ back into his corporation and he realizes he’s harder than he’s ever been in his life, his cock sliding against Aziraphale’s, and that feeling _alone_ shoots electric sparks up his spine until his back arches, head tipping back, a low tight groan escaping from his mouth; he could come like this, really, after whatever their cosmic emotional outburst had been. He wants to reach down, to take both of them in his hand; Aziraphale’s cock feels amazingly thick and heavy against his groin, and his palms are aching with wanting.

“Anything,” he breathes, descending to lick at Aziraphale’s jaw, at the slight stubble there, before coming back to kiss his lips. “Angel, anything,” and it’s the truth: at this point, Crowley’s spent, limp and loving, and he’d do whatever his angel asks of him.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathes. His hands come to cup Crowley’s face, to make Crowley focus on Aziraphale’s eyes, his face, his mouth. “Consider the menu wide open, my love. What will you have?”

And truth is, there are a thousand hundred things Crowley wants to do to Aziraphale, with Aziraphale, but it’s the first and the most primal that comes to Crowley's mind, here at this moment, and with the echo of Aziraphale’s power ringing in his ears, Crowley knows that this is the perfect moment to ask.

“Angel,” he says, arching his hips up into Aziraphale’s, frantically rubbing his cock up against the angel’s; it’s all bright with feeling. “Aziraphale. _Have me._ ”

Crowley can feel the effect it has on Aziraphale’s body; muscles tense in reaction, his thick cock spasms against Crowley’s hip, his lungs draw in a kilometer’s worth of air: yes, he’s chosen correctly. “Oh, darling,” Aziraphale says, and it’s with such affection Crowley nearly wants to melt under it; instead he tilts his head back so that Aziraphale’s tongue and teeth can land on his jawline, slip across his neck. “Oh, yes, my love.”

Crowley’s nothing at this point but a bunch of overstimulated nerve endings, and all he can do is twitch his body against Aziraphale’s in a way he hopes is eager and pliant. Aziraphale’s hand comes down, past his aching dick, and rubs small circles against his hole: this human body has never bothered to use or acknowledge this piece, and Crowley’s finding he immediately regrets it, because the sensations these touches send to his mind are nearly overwhelming and he has to clutch at his own cock to keep himself from overpouring early. “F-fffuck,” he hisses, as the tip of Aziraphale’s finger teases at it. “What the fffuck.”

“That’s it,” Aziraphale says. “My lord, but you’re lovely, lying here.”

Crowley hasn’t truly bothered with any of this body-related sensation in a long time -- and as Aziraphale’s working slick fingers along and into him, he wonders briefly, _why the Heaven not?_ Probably for this very reason; Aziraphale’s fingers, solid and thick, are slicked with something that burns angelic in the best way. Crowley bucks against it, trying to pull his own thighs up somewhere around his face, thinking vaguely that his snakespine could make that happen. As those fingers tease all Crowley has is a low keening sound he makes as they start to breech him; and Aziraphale is gasping into his ear as Crowley pants, and feels, and says yes so many times he has to wonder.

And then Aziraphale pushes into him, breathing only his name: _“Crowley,”_ a whisper graced in gold; a breath limned in lace. _Crowley,_ Aziraphale’s corporation repeats, over and over, and Crowley just folds, bends, breaks, and lets his angel in.

There’s a moment, as Aziraphale presses in the entire way - his hips to Crowley’s hips, their bare skin singing against each other - that Crowley truly thinks he may discorporate from this overwhelming feeling and never come back -- but then the angel speaks his name, grabbing at his hands and clenching at them, and Crowley gazes up into the first set of eyes that have loved him with no other stipulations and he falls in love, all over again, with Aziraphale.

“Yes,” says Crowley. “Angel, yes.” _God yes, Hell yes, Anyone: yes._ Every moment here, Aziraphale fully inside, burns in the best way. Crowley could stay just like this, filled and hot and held, until the next time the world decides to end.

“Look at you,” Aziraphale says, pleased, looking down at the arch Crowley’s neck is making because Crowley can’t help himself. Aziraphale’s drawing out slowly and every muscle in Crowley’s body is clenching at it, clamoring, begging to be filled again. “You’re gorgeous. If you knew,” and Azirpahale pauses, with only the head of his cock inside, and Crowley’s entire being sobbing for motion. “If you only knew how many times I’d thought of this…”

“Fffuck,” Crowley says. He can feel his snaketongue split, and the coolness of scales sprouting along his spine. “Always wondered, angel, alwaysss wondered.”

“Wondered what, my love?” Aziraphale deigns to slowly slide back inside in degrees, working Crowley open with slow, sure, repeated motions that leave Crowley just sighing into bliss. 

“‘Fff it was only me,” Crowley says, unaware that it’s going to come out a little bit sad and a little bit broken and Aziraphale, above him, huffs a startled breath that Crowley can feel throughout his entire body.

“I love you,” says Aziraphale simply, and he sinks down into Crowley, using every pound he has to press farther inside, until he’s fully sheathed again and rubbing up at something inside Crowley that feels like the beginning chords of a supernova. “I’ve done you wrong, my love, but you should know that I’ve thought of this a hundred times, a thousand times.” Aziraphale starts working his hips in rhythm with his words and Crowley’s vision whites out in a responding beat. “Here in this human world, these human bodies, the only world _we fit into—_ ”

“Yesss,” Crowley hisses. He’s gazing up at Aziraphale’s face as if it’s the sun: his snake spine arched and tiny little grunts emerging from his throat in time with Aziraphale’s thrusting, as he teases around that spot that makes Crowley see the stars he once built. “Our ssside, angel. Have you now.”

“You do,” Azirpahale croons, lowering himself to press his entire body against Crowley, lips right next to his ear. The shift in angle, with Crowley’s hips yearning upwards, have Aziraphale hitting that spot deep inside him; his body is spasming and his cock is sliding firmly between his stomach and Aziraphale’s. “We have each other.”

“Angel,” Crowley near-howls, caught in the back of his throat as Aziraphale continues, mercilessly, to breathe into his neck and licks at his ear and fill him again and again and _again_ and: who knew all these human nerves could sing like this? No heavenly or hellish choir, but a language all their own, and Crowley’s yelling of Aziraphale’s name turns into a sob as he comes in-between them, slick stripes immediately messed, untouched by anything save the burst of their own energies, still mingling deep down inside his ears.

Aziraphale sings his praises as he gently fucks Crowley though it and out the other side; Crowley’s shuddering at the force of it, clinging to Aziraphale’s broad shoulders, wondering whether it’s like this for mere humans and how they don’t _die_ every time it happens. He feels a little like death - shaky around the edges - except that his entire corporation is flushed and glowing with pleasure, a little bit human and a little bit ethereal and a lot of demonic satisfaction all in one.

Aziraphale has slowed as he looks down at Crowley’s face. He might be tearing up. “Oh, hea— heaven and hells, Crowley, you’re so _wonderful_ , so lovely and — delicious, I can — I can’t—”

“Take what you need, angel,” Crowley hisses into his ear, because he wants to see Aziraphale fall apart more than he’s ever wanted anything in his long existence. “I want to sssee you.”

Aziraphale’s movements stay slow for a while but they’re strong, determined; each one feels like his cock is pressing harder and deeper into Crowley, and Aziraphale’s tongue is a litany of _yes_ as hot and white as original sin. Crowley’s overwhelmed, overstimulated, but he crosses his ankles up around Aziraphale’s neck and lets himself feel all of it, the waves of pleasure almost too much against the singing backdrop of his own orgasm. “Go on, angel,” Crowley murmurs, because he has to say something but he doesn’t know how or what to say, and he’s bubbling up with emotion. “Your turn to mark me.”

Aziraphale makes this noise into his neck that’s half triumphant and half _whiny_ , and his hips start jerking into Crowley faster, and faster, and Crowley’s whole body feels like it’s been lit on fire; Aziraphale suddenly presses upwards, on his elbows, so that he’s looking Crowley in the face. Crowley arches up as best he can, claims the angel’s mouth, nips at that lower lip, and Aziraphale exhales all the nations of the world as his hips shudder and pulse - the force of it almost too much - as Aziraphale comes, deep inside.

“Ffffuck,” Crowley manages to get out, staring into Aziraphale’s eyes.

Aziraphale’s breathing hard, hauling air into his lungs, and it’s so very _human_ : they don’t need to breathe, but certainly, they don’t need to do the other things they do as well. They look at each other, and it’s like they’re seeing more than their faces; Crowley eventually has to close his eyes, turn away.

“Oh, Crowley,” says Aziraphale, tenderly bringing a hand to cup his cheek; Crowley turns into his palm, eyes still closed. 

“‘Sss a bit much, angel,” Crowley tells him. He feels shattered — in the best way, yes, but he’s been torn open, and it’s going to take a while for him to put everything back together. “It’sss been a long time.”

“I love you in every way an angel should,” Aziraphale says easily, “and in many ways they most certainly shouldn’t.”

Crowley shudders at it. Aziraphale gently moves, pulls out of Crowley, only to fall to his side and gather Crowley in to his chest. 

“I’d never dared to hope,” Aziraphale admits, his tone gentle and heavy. “To imagine that one day, we’d be in a place where we could — I couldn’t see a way for it to happen, a way for it to go on. I only saw it ending in tragedy.”

“Armageddon,” Crowley says a bit nonsensically into Aziraphale’s neck. “See, angel,” and his voice breaks a little as he says it, but only a little. “I’d been hoping since the day I sssaw you, consequencesss be damned.”

“You truly are Her greatest creation,” Aziraphale says joyfully, and something about that strikes Crowley to his very core. He’s shaking as he lifts his head to look at Aziraphale. 

“My darling,” Aziraphale begins, but there’s something about the smile around his mouth that has Crowley, to his surprise, starting to laugh.

“If you dare say Happy Christmas,” Crowley tells his angel quite plainly, “I am leaving.”

Aziraphale’s grinning at him now, in that entirely beastly way he has. “I’m going to say it anyway, and bet I can convince you otherwise.”

“Keep your mouth shut and find another bottle of that Riesling, and I’ll stay until morning,” Crowley threatens, even though he’s already entwining his legs with Aziraphale’s, wanting more skin contact, more entanglement, until they’re inseparable.

“A new and glorious morn,” Aziraphale breathes, looking at him, and it’s horribly sappy but Crowley arches in to kiss him anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> crowley: say it again  
> aziraphale: _merry christmas_  
>  crowley: NO NOT THAT THE OTHER THING
> 
> anyway yeah here's the fic that does not end. please lavish me with comments because i am a weak thing in this fandom, small and wasting away. hit me up on [tumblr](https://sevdrag.tumblr.com/), I am even more feral there, although no one is going to believe that until they see it


End file.
